the Empty Land (1969) (15 page)

"Felton, law was made to protect the weak, and to save the strength of the strong. Men like Thompson and Gorman, to name just two, do not want law. They have the strength, and their strength and willingness to use it gives them power. They can take what they want. You're asking them to give up that power for something they don't want, and have never wanted. For them there is always another boom town."

"Anyway, what's so different about you?" Felton turned directly around. "If I can't run it, why can you?"

"Maybe I can't ... but I think I can, and that isn't all; they think I can. I have to go down there prepared to beat them at their own game, to be a little bit tougher, faster, surer. And I have the advantage that I have done it before. That helps me and handicaps them, because they know I've done it before, and some of them were even there when it happened.

"Because they know I've done it before, they won't be sure I can't do it again. That fact places the proof on them, and most of them don't want to stand up and be counted.

"As long as you try to face them all, you haven't a chance. You've got to single them out, you've got to make each man stand by himself, you've got to isolate them. Make each man sure that if he calls you, he is the one who will die, not the man beside him or behind him. Once you do that, they will break up and quit." There was reason in the argument, Dick Felton reluctantly conceded, but having gone this far, he felt he could not retreat. All his common sense told him that he should back off now and leave the job to the professional, yet he shook off the idea, and hitched his gunbelt into place. "I can do it," he insisted, "and I am going to do it."

Matt Coburn shrugged. "Every man must go his own way, I suppose, even if it takes him to hell on the end of a six-gun."

Dan Cohan came up the street then, and crossed over to where they waited. "There's to be a meeting of the council," he said. "Olin Kingsbury is in town. He wants to talk to us."

Felton hesitated, looking toward the town. 'That will wait," Cohan said. "Come on. r11 get Zeller."

He started off, then turned. "Want to drop in, Matt? If you do, come along."

Wayne Simmons, Newton Clyde, Buckwalter, Cage, and Zeller were there, as well as Cohan and Felton. Then Fife came in, keeping to the back of the room. Kingsbury, dressed in a neat dark suit, was a tall man, not over forty, and well set up. His eyes swept the group in one quick glance.

"Gentlemen, I'll come to the point at once." As he spoke, Ike Fletcher came into the room with Kendrick and Dorset. "Your town is beset with lawlessness. I have business to conduct here, and you need a marshal. I have a man, the only man who can protect you ... Big Thompson."

Chapter
13

As Kingsbury spoke, Big Thompson stepped into the room, thumbs hooked in his belt, his small, cruel eyes taking in the men.

"No," Felton said flatly. "Thompson has caused most of the trouble. He will not be marshal in this town."

"If you want my business " Kingsbury began.

"I am not sure that we do." Inside, Felton was shaking, but he sounded cool. He was a man of courage, and he knew what had to be said. "I have information that you are coming in here with a crowd of hired gunmen." Kingsbury smiled. "I do what is necessary. The town is lawless. I have property here. You are without a marshal."

"I am the marshal," Felton replied quietly. "I shall enforce the law. I shall start by saying there will be no shooting in the streets. The title of every claim that changes hands from this day on will be examined by legal authority."

Kingsbury continued to smile. 'You will forgive me, Mr. Felton, if I doubt your ability to enforce that law against shooting in the streets. Thompson could enforce it. Not you."

"He will have what help he needs." Cohan spoke quietly. "And what backing he needs to enforce the law on claim titles. There will be no claim-jumping here."

The door had been left open, and now Madge Healy appeared in it, with Pike Sides. "I am glad to hear you say that, Dan," she said. "Mr. Kingsbury has some men, armed men, on the slope above the Treasure Vault. I believe they intend to move against me."

"As the heirs of your deceased husband, Miss Healy," Kingsbury said, "I believe you can look to us for protection. Those men are mine, there to protect you."

"My deceased husband," Madge said, "had no claim on my property. It was mine before I met him, and I relinquished no rights to any of it. As for protection, I have my own."

Matt Coburn had remained outside, close to an open window. He owned no property in Confusion, he held no official position, and he had no right to speak. But he could listen. At the mention of the men on the slope above the Treasure Vault, his eyes swung that way. A line of men, in skirmish formation, were moving slowly down the hill. Sure that Madge Healy would appear at the meeting, Kingsbury had chosen this time for his men to move.

Matt's own home was up at the Discovery claim, but Clyde's horse was tethered at the hitching rail. Jerking loose the slipknot, Matt swung to the saddle. The trail to the Treasure Vault was easy; it swung around a small hill, out of sight of the men on the slope.

The home was a fast one and it started with a lunge of speed. In scarcely more than two minutes Matt was dropping to the ground at the Treasure Vault.

There was a square stone building on the claim, a tent, and a windlass over the shaft. A man loitered at the windlass. Matt hit the ground running, letting the horse go. "How many men down there?" he demanded. "Two ... what's up?"

"Hell to pay. Get them up and under cover. Make it fast. Ike Fletcher's gunmen are going to try to jump the
claim
They're right up the hill."

The man looked up the slope, but the men were still hidden behind a rise in the ground.

He leaned over and yelled down to the men, then grabbed hold of the rope. The first of the attackers were just coming into sight when the men emerged from the shaft.

"If you boys are fighters," Matt said, "I'll be glad of your help. Otherwise get inside and stay under cover." "For Madge?" one of the men said. "Hell, I'll fight!" He ran for the building and the others followed.

Matt Coburn looked up the bill. The gunmen were scarcely sixty yards off, and there were at least ten of them but he had an idea there were others. He went to the stone house and stepped inside. His own rifle was on his saddle, but he took one from the rack, jacked a shell into the chamber, and picked up a box of shells from a shelf. Then he went outside again swiftly.

He came into plain view of the men, who were nearer now.

"All right, up there!" he called. "This is Matt Coburn talking. You've come far enough.|

It was the name that stopped them. They could all see him standing there waiting for them, and not a man but knew his reputation.

One man spoke up. "Mad, this ain't your affair. We're workin' for Kingsbury."

"Never heard of him," Matt said contemptuously, "but I know Madge Healy, and so do fifty thousand other miners in Nevada. Suppose you take her claim away from her? Where are you boys going to go afterwards? "You've all heard of Madge. There's fifty thousand men in Nevada who've heard her sing since she was a child. Fifty thousand who will hate your guts ... if you live through this."

There was a moment of silence, and then their leader spoke again. "Mad, you back off now. We want no trouble with you, but we've got our orders."

"All right, Smoke." Matt Coburn had placed the man.

"Here I am, and there you are. You go right ahead and follow orders."

The straggling line was motionless, each man calculating the odds. There was only one man down there, but they all knew what he could do. He could only get a few of them before they got him, but nobody wanted to be among the few who would die.

Suddenly, from behind Coburn, a voice spoke, the voice of the miner who had been at the windlass. "Don't you pay no mind to that geezer on the left, Matt. rye got him right in my sights.'

From the cover of the building a second voice spoke up quickly. "An'
I've
got another one!"

A third voice followed. "Let 'em come, Matt. This here's goin' to be like shootin' ducks in a barrel!"

"'Well, Smoke " Matt spoke almost carelessly, as though it mattered not at all to him. "That sort of evens things out, doesn't it? There's four of us, three of us under cover, and you boys all out in the open. What's it goin to
be
Smoke took a slow step backward. "All right, Matt," he said, "but this here's only started. We hired on for the job."

|Then you've bought yourself a ticket to Boot Hill," Matt said quietly. "All right. Get off the hillside, and make it quick. And if you want a fight you can have it, any time, any place."

Slowly, they turned around and started up the hill, but Matt Coburn knew what Smoke said was true, that this was only the beginning. Those men were not cowards. They had simply figured their chances and decided to fight another day when the odds might be changed. They were men who fought for hire, and who were hired because of their ability to get results.

A buckboard was racing along the trail, and just as Matt turned to walk back to the mine, it pulled up below. Madge Healy was there, with Pike Sides.

"You stopped them, Matt," Madge said, putting her hand on his sleeve. "You stopped them again."

"Your boys were right in there with me, Madge," he gestured toward the miners. "They stood ready to fight."

Pike stared at Math "You move fast, Coburn." He paused. "Was that Smoke Benton up there?"

"Uh-huh." Matt was watching Kingsbury, who was racing up in a buckboard, followed by several others. Kingsbury drove a fine pair of bays, and they swung into the open area near the shaft and drew up in a cloud of dust. "What's going on here," he demanded.

"Mr. Kingsbury," Madge said, "you are trespassing. You are to leave this property at once, and I do not want you to come here again for any reason whatsoever."

Kingsbury stared around, unwilling to believe his men were not in command. He started to speak when Pike Sides moved forward. "You heard the lady," he said. "Get
out
Ike Fletcher, a lean man with narrow gray eyes, sat beside Kingsbury. "Pike, you're ridin' a pretty high horse there. You better step down whilst you're able."

"Turn that team," Pike said. "I'm giving you thirty seconds. I'll kill you first, Kingsbury."

Without another word the mining man swung the team and trotted them down the trai
l.

The afternoon was quiet. There was no sound except the usual sounds of a western town at work, and even these seemed muted. The sky was gray and lowering. Occasionally there were gusts of wind.

Dick Felton sat at the table in the building on Discovery, and waited. He wore the star, he had the gun belted on, and tonight he would take up his duties as marsha
l.

As always, Zeller was guiding the work on the claim. The place smelled of fresh lumber and of coffee. The door stood open; to the left was another unfinished wall of another room, still to be added. From where Felton sat he could see the street below. A stage coach had come in they still ran only intermittently and Wayne Simmons was talking to the driver. A dog lay in the dust in the center of the street, and whenever anyone approached he wagged his tail, as if to say, I'm comfortable if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.

A few scattered horses were tied to the hitching rails. In front of the new Bon-Ton Restaurant a man sat tipped back in a wooden chair, asleep in the sun, his hat over his eyes.

It looked innocent enough. Somewhere among the tents and wagons of the more recent arrivals, a hen cackled, announcing to all that she had laid an egg.

Felton looked down the street, wondering about tonight. For the first time he was fully aware of what he was facing, and aware that he stood almost alone. Dan would back him up, so would Clyde, but they were only two against so many.

Matt Coburn loomed in the door. "How about a cup of coffee?"

"Sure. Sit down."

Matt took up the coffeepot and walked to the table with a cup, refilling Felton's, then filling his own. "You got any idea what's going to happen down here tonight?' he asked.

"I'm going to lay down the law," Felton said.

"You're going to need six sets of eyes and twelve hands," Matt said dryly. "If anybody shoots a gun, pay no attention. The chances are it will be a trick to get you into the street You'll have to watch the dark alleyways and the roof-tops. Big Thompson may pick a fight with you, or maybe it will be Gorman or one of the others. Stay out of it You wouldn't have a chance.

"If a fight starts over a card game," Matt went on, "stand off if you want to stop it; stand off a good distance, and watch your back. Don't back up against a wall .. . remember a forty-five cartridge will shoot through six inches of pine, and none of the walls down there are more than an inch thick.

"You'll have to move fast, and keep moving. My suggestion would be to tell them what to do and kill the first man who refuses, or moves too slow."

"I can't do that."

"Then you're a dead man."

Felton shifted in his chair. "How many bad ones are there down there?"